Our Backpacking Trips

Trip Report: Three Days Backpacking with a Hammock at Hercules Glades Wilderness

Wild Camping with a hammock, behind the Pilots in Hercules Glades Wilderness

It was time to go out on my long awaited backpacking trip with a hammock. Plan ‘A’ was for us to go on a quick, one-night visit to Hercules Glades Wilderness. When Ginger decided she wasn’t going, I quickly came up with Plan ‘B’ which transformed the quick one-nighter into a solo three-day, Friday through Sunday trip.

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Trip Report: 2017 Total Solar Eclipse Backpacking

Photograph of the 2017 total solar eclipse seen through the trees of the Mark Twain National Forest near the Berryman / Ozark trail in MIssouri

We went eclipse backpacking on the Ozark Trail. The eclipse was more popular than I anticipated. My plan had been to wait until seven days before the event and pick a destination. I picked seven days because the weather forecast would be more reliable. Unfortunately, waiting that late meant that everything was already booked (and […]

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Trip Report: Backpacking on the Hercules Glades Pees Hollow Trail

The next couple of months are going to be very busy for us, and opportunities for getting out hiking or backpacking will be limited. The prospect of a spell of warm Ozarks winter weather gave us a chance to squeeze in a midweek backpacking trip. We rearranged our work schedules and took off to Hercules […]

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Trip Report: Bell Mountain Wilderness – March 2012

Eager to find a new sort of ground to cover, we turned our attention to the St. Francois Mountain area for our Spring Break trip. The St. Francois Mountains are an ancient granite mountain range that stands, literally, as an island in the limestone and dolomite former sea beds that are the Ozarks Plateau.

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Trip report: Backpacking in Hercules Glades – September 2012

Taking advantage of a long weekend, we took Lanie with us on a three day backpacking trip to Hercules Glades. Our plan was to map some of the western trails with the GPS, try to find the Spring we think Rock Spring Trail is named after, and show Lanie the falls.

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Trip report: Memorial Day weekend backpacking at Hercules Glades Wilderness

Memorial Day weekend 2011. We took advantage of the long weekend to go backpacking at Hercules Glades Wilderness and spent three nights in the wilderness.

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Trip report: Two days solo backpacking in Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area

With a couple of spare days I decided to fit in a quick solo backpacking trip. To save on gas I stayed close to Springfield, backpacking around Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area. I found a second cemetery and an abandoned vehicle I didn’t know were there.

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Trip report: Three days backpacking in the Piney Creek Wilderness – June 2012

Photograph of an MSR Mutha Hubba Tent without Flysheet camped at the mouth of Piney Creek and Buck Hollow

School’s out for the summer, so there’s no school run to worry about. Lanie’s staying with her grandparents for a few days. The big kids are old enough to be left home alone. What better opportunity to get in a few days backpacking?

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Trip report: Backpacking at Piney Creek Wilderness – April 2012

A girl, woman, and man sitting on a log for a picture during a spring backpacking trip in Piney Creek Wilderness in the southern Missouri Ozarks.

One of the more problematic aspects of an outdoor-loving lifestyle is that you have to either find someone to take your kids while you go play or you have to bring your kids with you. We finally have two kids old enough to leave at home. But our youngest is still a bit young so we’ve been working on getting her interested in the idea of going on backpacking trips with us

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Trip report: Backpacking the Devil’s Backbone Wilderness – February 2011

This was our second backpacking trip and we’d picked the Devil’s Backbone Wilderness as our destination. We were still learning – especially about finding a spot to camp and reducing the weight of our packs, we’ll always be learning something. The weather was rather dreary but we enjoyed ourselves.

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Trip report: backpacking at Hercules Glades Wilderness – December 2010

Our first backpacking experience The kids were with their dad in Chicago. The forecast was for unseasonably warm temperatures. We had backpacking gear we’d not fully tried out yet. It had been nearly six weeks since our last camping trip. It was time. We were ready to go on our first backpacking trip!

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